The Dispossessed
by hufflelit
Summary: A series of missing moments and alternate points of view from my Leah-centric fic "Possession."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** This is the big talk Jacob and Nessie have between chapters 9 and 10 of Possession, after Leah tells Jacob that Nessie has been asking questions about his feelings for her. In order to figure out Nessie and Leah's reactions to The Talk, I found I actually needed to write it, and it seemed a shame to let it just sit on my hard drive. I hope you enjoy.

All characters are property of Stephanie Meyer and her publishers. I'm not making any money - just having fun.

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><p>Jacob kept his eyes on Nessie as they wandered down the beach together. The ocean wind was blowing her curls around, and he smiled as she huffed and shoved them out of her face.<p>

She bent over a pile of ocean-smoothed rocks and Jake crouched to help her find a good skipping stone. He knew his girl. Not as well as Leah did, apparently, and that was a whole new world of wrong and upsetting.

No two ways about it: Leah was right. Nessie was obviously upset about something, and he kicked himself for not seeing it earlier. Or maybe he had seen it, and just hadn't known what to do. He thought you were always supposed to know what your imprint needed, but maybe he wasn't trying hard enough.

"More like she doesn't know what she needs right now," Edward had said when he'd heard the thought in Jake's head. Jacob, desperate for any help he could get, hadn't even been annoyed at the intrusion.

"She's at a crossroads," Edward had explained, looking unhappier with every word. "Part of her suspects that you may have imprinted on her, and she doesn't know how she feels about it. More than anything, she wants things to stay the same, but she's changing every day. Inside more than out."

"You okay, honey?" Jacob asked now, trying to figure out how to even have this conversation. Edward and Bella had been firm: no talk of imprinting yet. And as long as there was any chance Nessie didn't want to know about it, Jake was 100% onboard with keeping that secret.

"Yes, Jacob," Nessie said, but it sounded more like a reflex than an answer. Jake felt a sharp twist in his chest as he started to understand where Bella was coming from. Edward said that hearing Nessie's thoughts wasn't the same as her sharing them, but at least Edward knew what Nessie was thinking.

"Okay," he said, feeling helpless. He'd never felt helpless with Nessie. "You know you can always talk to me, right?"

Nessie looked up, her eyes bright with that lightening-fast genius she'd always had. That light was tinged with suspicion now, and that was new, too.

"Did Leah say something to you?"

"No," Jacob said, hating himself for lying. "What would she have said?"

"I don't know," Nessie lied back. Jake couldn't help noticing she was better at it than he was. "I just heard Mom telling Aunt Alice you'd been upset by something Leah had said."

Great. Of course. Who better to eavesdrop in a house full of vampires than a stealthy little hybrid, who Jake suspected had much sharper hearing than she let on?

"Just pack stuff," Jake said, waving a dismissive hand. "Bella worries too much." As much as he hated lying to Nessie, the fact remained that Leah was apparently the only one she could open up to right now, and hell if he was going to take that away from her.

The suspicion went out of Nessie's eyes and she looked at him with heart-melting concern.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, Nessie, I'm fine," he promised, squeezing her shoulder through her wool coat. "Come on, let's keep walking – you look cold."

She rolled her eyes but didn't argue.

The beach was frosty, and empty except for them. A good place to have a heart-to-heart, he'd thought. Or a conversation about absolutely nothing. They'd never kept secrets from each other before. Well, except that one big one.

"You can talk to me, too, you know," Nessie said, squeezing his hand. Time was, she'd have left her fingers clasped around his the whole way down the beach. Not anymore. She was growing up, like Edward said. Jacob wished the idea didn't scare him so much.

"I know, honey," he said, pulling her in for a one-armed hug. "You know you're my best friend, right?"

Nessie didn't answer, and Jake looked down at her.

"Ness?"

Nessie dragged the toes of her boots in the wet, gray sand.

"Don't you think I'm a little young for you?" she finally blurted, and Jacob laughed. After all this time, she could definitely still surprise him.

"You calling me old?" he teased. She slid him a soft, sideways smile, but she wasn't laughing and he stopped immediately.

"You've always been old for your age," he told her. A question occurred to him and he stumbled over it, afraid of the answer. "Do you think I'm too old for you?"

"No!" she cried, clinging to his hand with both of hers, and she was just his little Nessie again, just like always. "Jake, you're my very best friend!"

"Good," Jacob said, pleased. He pulled her in for another hug and she threw her arms around his chest. "Settled, then."

Jacob wasn't quite on the far side of relieved just yet. Nessie was obviously still chewing on something, and he waited patiently for her to spit it out. He'd wait forever, and gladly. But that went without saying. Especially to Ness.

"Who was your best friend before me?" she asked finally.

Jacob remembered what Edward had said the other night – "she's thinking a lot about your relationship with Bella," he'd explained, looking unhappier than ever. "She wonders what it means about your friendship with her."

_Danger_, he told himself. _Thin ice._

"Before you?" he echoed. It felt like forever ago. He'd lived a while lifetime with Nessie.

"Bella was my best friend for a couple years. Before that," he went on, so it didn't sound like he'd just transferred his feelings from Bella to her – which he hadn't, despite what Leah had suggested in some of her bitchier moments, "Quil and Embry were my best friends."

Nessie nodded, and Jacob held his breath as he waited for the next question.

"Were you and Bella," she hesitated, and Jacob frowned at the sound of Bella's name from Nessie's mouth, "_just_ friends?"

Jake stopped and Nessie looked up at him, her face twisted in anxiety.

"Yes, honey," he told her, his voice as soothing as he knew how to make it. "Bells and I were always just friends."

He pulled her to a nearby hunk of driftwood and sat, patting the space next to him. Nessie sat, her eyes wary.

"Is that what you're worried about?" he asked. "That Bella might have… liked someone else other than Edward?"

Nessie looked momentarily stricken before her gaze dropped to her knees.

"Did she?" she mumbled. Jacob wished she'd just _show_ him what she was thinking, but he'd never ask. Her gift was just that – _hers_ – and it pissed him off how the vamps were always taking Nessie's hand and pressing her palm to their faces like she should want to share everything with them, all the time. Maybe it took being in a pack to understand how sacred privacy could be.

"Hey," Jake said, ducking his head to catch her eye. "Not even for a second."

Nessie didn't look that relieved, and he gave her shoulder a little nudge, hoping she'd keep asking.

"Did you ever have girlfriends?" she finally mumbled, so low he almost couldn't understand.

When he did, he struggled not to smile. The last thing she needed was to have him laughing at her.

"Nope," he told her, popping the 'p' to let her know it wasn't a big deal. "Not one."

She frowned at him.

"How come?"

He shrugged. "Never met anyone I liked," he half-lied. He'd loved Bella, of course, but that was all kinds of complicated he didn't want to get into. And now that he knew what real love was, he knew that nothing he'd ever felt before compared.

"But when you meet your imprint," Nessie said, her voice firm and clear, and he knew this was the conversation they'd been dancing around all morning – this was the part she'd rehearsed. "She'll be your girlfriend."

Jacob hesitated. This was the big lie, the one he'd have to take back one day, and he'd be happier if he could keep as close to the truth as possible.

"If she wants to be," he answered carefully. "Nessie, you know I'll always love you, right? No matter what happens. If you grow up and you want to have a boyfriend, we'll still be best friends, and if you want to have another best friend, I'll still always be here for you. No matter who you meet or… or who I do, I'm with you forever."

"But _why_?" Nessie sighed, and Jacob was horrified to see her eyes fill with tears. How had he let her worry this much?

He hugged her against his chest and she buried her face in his neck, although her hands stayed clenched in her pockets. He kept hugging her anyway, scrambling for an answer, trying to separate the concepts of _Nessie_ and _imprint_ in his mind. Nessie didn't need to know why he loved her – she needed to know why he _liked_ her.

"Before you were born," he said, pulling back to look at her, "we were all really scared. We'd never heard of anything like you before, and Bella was so sick."

Nessie's eyes were wide, but she'd heard all this before. He powered on.

"I already knew Bella had decided to become a vampire and… I guess it hurt my feelings." He shook his head, correcting himself. It was hard to remember how much hate he'd felt before he met Nessie. "No, it did hurt my feelings. A lot. Things were different between your family and the pack back then, and I thought that once Bella was changed, we'd be enemies forever. I hated that she chose the vampires over me."

Nessie did put her hand against his cheek then, and he saw Bella, her marble face breaking into a smile as he walked into the cottage, Bella cooking his favorite meal before he came over, Bella worrying about him when he was out late on patrol, and he smiled.

"I know," he said, patting Nessie's hand. "I know now, but I was so angry then. At her, at Edward, at everyone. And then you were born, and Edward changed her, but at first, we thought he was too late. That she was gone." Nessie's hand tightened in his.

"Then I saw you," he said, squeezing hers back. "You were with Rosalie, and as soon as you saw me, you reached for me. She let me hold you… eventually. And you showed me…" He smiled, remembering. Every second with Nessie was etched into his memory, but those first moments of excruciating bliss were still precious.

"You showed me your memories of my voice before you were born, and how you'd known Bella was happier when I was there… and you showed me what it felt like when Rosalie held you, and what it felt like when I did. Not bad, either one – just different. And I realized that all the things I'd thought were the end of the world were really okay. That everything was okay. And I thought that if you could teach me all that when you were barely five minutes old, then you were really someone special.

"You've always been like that, Nessie. Just so… intuitive," he said, fumbling for the right words. "So considerate and loving of everyone, even people who don't deserve it. So smart, and so funny, and so good at reading people, especially me. And unless you suddenly decide to stop being so awesome, I'm sticking with you."

Without warning, Nessie threw her arms around his neck, nearly knocking him off the log. Laughing, he hugged her back, kissing her cheek.

"Okay?"

"Okay," she said, beaming.

"Want some lunch?"

"Can I cook?" she asked slyly.

Jacob laughed. "Not a chance."

"I'm getting better," Nessie protested. "Mom's been teaching me."

"Nessie, I'm pretty sure you could burn soup."

"That was _one time_!"

Laughing and teasing, they headed home.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** This is Jacob's POV for the scene in chapter 13, when he goes to see Nessie after her fight with Bella and Edward. Again, I found I needed to write this scene before I could figure out just what Jacob would be coming back from when he returns to Leah and Billy. Just a little more insight into Nessie's teen angst period and its impact on Jacob and the Cullens. I hope you enjoy.

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><p>It took him less time than usual to reach the cottage, but it felt like forever. His heart was pounding and his lungs were still burning as he phased and got dressed, but he barely noticed. He'd never heard Nessie sound like that before.<p>

He'd never even heard Nessie _cry_ before, and it had actually taken him a second to realize that was what she was doing. She'd been nearly hysterical as she'd sobbed and choked out the story, so that he didn't really know what was going on. He only knew she'd had a fight with her parents, and that he had to get to her right away.

As he stepped into the clearing around the cottage, he noticed something glittering in the grass. A glance up at Nessie's smashed window told him it was glass. Shit.

His heart was still pounding, but he was recovered from his sprint. This was pure anxiety about his girl. He wanted to go right up to her, but raised voices inside the house told him he'd better go through Bella and Edward.

The front door was closed but unlocked, and Jacob opened it without knocking.

"And now Jacob's here," Edward announced, interrupting his own rant. "Fantastic."

Bella was tense and still by the fireplace, her face like ice. By contrast, Edward was pacing so fast it was making Jake seasick, and his hair was standing on end, like he'd been pulling at it.

"What the hell is going on?" Jake asked.

"Everything's fine," Bella said, shooting a glare at Edward before she fixed it on Jake. "We're just dealing with… a slight attitude problem."

"Oh, thanks a lot, _Mom_!" Nessie shrieked from upstairs. "That's a great new nickname!"

Jake's eyebrows shot up as he looked at Bella, but she'd turned back into a statue. Only her yellow eyes moved, tracing Edward's zigzagging path around the room.

"Can I talk to her?" Jake asked, already moving toward the stairs.

Edward froze and Jake stopped, more for appearances than anything else. He was going to see Nessie whether Edward liked it or not.

Edward made a face at him. "Fine," he bit out. "I've given up on talking to her."

"I wish you _would_!" Ness yelled.

Jacob rolled his eyes. Leave it to Edward to try to out-diva his teenage daughter. Edward's answering growl reached him at the top of the stairs.

Bella sighed. "We'll be at the mansion."

Jacob heard the front door open and close, but he didn't care so much where Bella and Edward were. He just cared how Nessie was.

"Ness?" he said gently, tapping on her door. "Can I come in?"

The door flew open and Nessie hurled herself into his arms, her face pressed against his shoulder as she sobbed.

"Shh, Ness, honey," Jake soothed, his throat tight. He stroked her back as she quieted down.

Suddenly, Nessie pulled back to look at him.

"Can I come live with you?" she begged.

Her face was streaked with tears and her eyes were red and puffy, and he wanted to give her everything – anything – to make her happy again.

"What? Nessie, what happened?"

She pressed her face against his shoulder where her tears had already soaked through his shirt.

"They don't want me here," she mumbled.

This time Jake pulled back to make her look at him.

"You know that's not true, Nessie. Your parents love you."

"Loving me and liking me isn't the same thing," she retorted, so fast and harsh that he guessed it was an accusation she'd flung at Bella and Edward earlier.

Jake decided to side-step that whole issue. "Why would you think they don't want you here?" he asked.

"They're so obsessed with each other!" Nessie exploded, storming over to her smashed window. She was wearing leggings and a pink t-shirt showing a picture of the Earth and – ironically – the words "LOVE YOUR MOTHER." She started pacing, tugging at her reddish-brown curls, and Jacob opted not to mention how much she looked like her dad.

"It's like I'm not even here half the time! If they didn't want a kid to intrude on their perfect little forever, then they shouldn't have had me!"

"Honey, of course your parents want you. You know what they went through to have you. You're their whole world."

Nessie paused in her pacing to shoot him a vicious glare. "They're _each __others__'_ whole worlds," she corrected. "And if I have to hear one more time about how my mother died to have me, I'll…" She flailed her arms like she couldn't even find words for what she'd do.

"Punch a hole through a window?" Jake suggested. Nessie glared again, but he was relieved to see the corner of her mouth twitch, like she was thinking about smiling. Maybe. Some day in the future.

"That was my phone, actually," she said, looking a little embarrassed. "Edward came to take it when he heard me calling you."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Jake asked, clamping down on the anger rising in his chest. He respected most of Edward's rules, but the idea of Edward trying to keep Nessie from calling him made him furious.

Nessie slumped onto her bed like all the fight had gone out of her. Jake sat next to her, and she leaned against him, hugging her long legs to her chest.

"I was just so tired of them always whispering and cuddling and only paying attention to me when it's convenient, and then Edward told me to _watch __my __attitude_ because he _wouldn__'__t __have __me __thinking __such __things __about __my __mother_." She did a pretty good Edward impression, Jake had to admit. He might have even laughed, if the thought of Edward yelling at Nessie just for thinking hadn't made his blood boil. Jesus, hadn't the bloodsucker learned anything about privacy in the last hundred years? Couldn't Nessie even catch a break inside her own head?

"I told him that if he doesn't like my thoughts, he shouldn't listen. I mean, they control every single aspect of my entire life, and now he wants to control my thoughts, as well?" She surged to her feet and started pacing again, her voice getting louder. "I'm not just some doll they can put away when they're finished playing with me, and I'm not a baby anymore, so why don't they just drop the act and admit that they never wanted a _teenager_ – they wanted a _toy_. And now we're stuck with each other. Forever!"

Her voice broke and her face crumpled into tears again. Jacob was at her side in a second, his arms wrapping around her thin, shaking shoulders.

"No one's stuck," he told her. "Do you hear me, Ness? You're not stuck. In a few years, you'll be able to go wherever you want. You can go to school, you can go to college – you can go to Antarctica if you still want to get away this badly, okay?"

"I want to get away _now_," she gasped through her tears, her face buried in his shoulder.

He held her tighter, refusing to let the words cut him. He knew she didn't mean half the things she said these days. He wished Edward could get that idea through his thick, sparkling head.

"I know, honey. Just hang in there a little longer."

"I h-_hate_ feeling like this," she sobbed. Her body shook harder and Jake rubbed slow, soothing circles on her back, like Mom used to do for him when he was a little kid.

"I know, honey," he repeated, resting his cheek against her hair. "That will stop, too."

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><p>Nessie cried herself out eventually. She was so exhausted that she let him sit by her bed and stroke her hair as she fell asleep, like he'd done when she was little. She'd put a stop to things like that about a year ago – "baby stuff," she'd called it. Since then, she'd pulled away bit by bit, until she hardly let him touch her at all.<p>

It felt so good to be close to her that he stayed by her side for a long time after her breathing turned slow and even. She was still his Nessie, but she was changing faster than he could keep up, and he woke up every day half terrified that she might've outgrown him in the night.

Finally, he sighed and got to his feet. Time to face the music. The sparkly, bloodsucking music. Jake got along with Bella and Edward really well, considering their messed up history, but he would always be on Nessie's side, now that there were sides at all.

He drew Nessie's curtains across the hole in her window, then lay another blanket over her for good measure. She ran almost as hot as he did, but it was getting chilly outside, and he didn't want her to wake up cold.

Jake hesitated before gently kissing Nessie on the cheek, since she wasn't awake to complain about him babying her. He breathed in deep, letting himself find comfort in her warm scent and the fact that she was all right. Not happy, but still whole. It was the best he could do for now.

The run to the mansion didn't take long. He could see the whole family gathered in the living room, their white faces serious.

"How is she?" Bella asked as soon as he walked in. She was biting her lip, and Jake almost smiled at the human tick she'd managed to relearn so well it was nearly habit again.

"Sleeping." Jacob met Edward's eyes and lost any desire he had to smile.

"You think I was too hard on her," Edward stated, arching an eyebrow. He looked calm, but years of pissing Edward off had made Jake pretty good at recognizing the signs.

"I think that sending a teenager to her room for having angry thoughts is kind of like yelling at the wind for blowing," Jake said, trying to keep his own temper under control.

"That's fascinating, Jacob," Edward said, his voice an icy purr. "We'll have to talk about this again when you have a teenage daughter."

Jacob felt his control start to slip. "She thinks you regret having her," he snapped. The rest of the family had been sitting still as statues, but now Esme put a hand to her mouth in horror. "So you might want to work on that."

"Jake," Bella broke in. He looked at her and saw her marble face etched with pain, and immediately regretted what he'd said. Bella and Edward needed to know what was going on with Nessie, but he should've put it better than that.

"We'd like your opinion on something," Bella went on, getting her expression back under control.

"No, we wouldn't," Blondie muttered. Bella ignored her.

"Rosalie and Emmett have offered to take Renesmee on vacation. Just to give her some time away from home. What do you think?"

Jake tried to answer, but the words strangled in his throat. Take Ness away? Now? When she was changing so fast that every minute away from her felt like a month?

"For how long?" he choked out. "Where to?"

"For however long she needs," Edward said. "We have… cousins, after a fashion, in Alaska. She'll stay with them."

"With vampires," Jacob said, voice flat.

"_We__'__re_ vampires," Emmett reminded him. He was smiling, but his eyes were narrowed.

"It's Carmen, Eleazar, Tanya, Kate and Garrett, Jake," Bella explained. "They helped us protect Renesmee, remember? The other vegetarians?"

Jacob didn't remember them specifically. He'd had more important things on his mind during the leech invasion than getting to know a bunch of bloodsuckers. They all looked more or less the same to him, anyway.

It looked like the Cullens trusted them, though, so he guessed he'd have to. Didn't mean he had to like it. Of course, Nessie would have Blondie and Emmett for protection. He liked that a little better. Rosalie was a crazy bitch, but she'd defend Nessie until she was ashes, and one look at Emmett would make any leech think twice about taking a bite.

"We wouldn't send her there if we didn't know she'd be perfectly safe," Edward snapped, obviously irritated by the direction of Jacob's thoughts. Whatever. He'd never apologize for worrying about Nessie's safety. Especially not when they were about to take her away from him for who knew how long.

"You've been thinking about this for a while, huh?" he asked Bella, not quite managing to keep the accusation out of his voice.

"You don't know what it's been like here," Bella told him, crossing her arms defensively. "I can't do anything right with her anymore. When I talk to her, she says I'm babying her, and when I don't talk to her, she says I'm ignoring her. Earlier tonight, all I had to say was "calm down" before she was screaming at me for taking Edward's side. She's not happy, Jacob, and honestly, I'm at the end of my rope. I don't know what to try anymore. This seems like the best choice."

"It sounds like you've already decided," Jake said. He tried to imagine what it would be like not to see Nessie for days – maybe even weeks. The idea made him feel hollow, like his insides had been scooped out to make a human jack o' lantern.

"We'd still like to hear your opinion, Jake," Bella told him. "She actually talks to you – do you think this will be good for her? I don't want her to think we're just sending her away because she's too hard to deal with."

_Aren__'__t __you?_ Jake thought, then shot a look at Edward. _Ooh, __sorry. __Don__'__t __send __me __to __my __room._ Edward just rolled his eyes.

"I think..." Jake started, then swallowed hard. He remembered Nessie's broken voice as she'd sobbed into his shoulder. _I __want __to __get __away __now._ It was what she needed. He'd always give her that.

"I think it will be good for her. I think she could use some space right now." From all of them, probably. Including himself.

"Great," Barbie said, standing up. "It's settled then. I'll call Tanya." She glared around at them all like she was daring someone to argue. When no one did, she swept out of the room.

"You know we'll take good care of her, bro," Emmett said, suddenly appearing at Jake's side.

Jacob nodded, but his eyes were on Bella. Edward was already halfway to the river, but Bella paused at the back door and looked over her shoulder at Jake. She didn't smile, and neither did he. After another second, she was gone.

Great. Now he was fighting with Bella. How had this night gotten so fucked up?

"Cheer up," Emmett told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "It probably won't be for more than a couple weeks!"


End file.
